


Unmasking New Strategies

by taichara



Category: Super Mario Bros. 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 17:43:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6124906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peach contends with one of the more ghastly inhabitants of Subcon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmasking New Strategies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



No one said saving the world was easy.

Certainly, Peach never said any such thing -- she would never be so rude, and especially not to the brave plumbing souls who threw themselves at so much in the name of rescuing her and her Kingdom. So, at least she hadn't wound up in this situation unaware of just what saving the world could involve. She was hardly alone, either; not only Mario and Luigi (bless them) but even Toad were all here in Subcon, sharing the tribulations and all involved in their own stretches of the quest to rescue all of Subcon from Wart's evil clutches.

Just _how_ all four of them were managing that trick, especially with each of them somehow bypassing, or teleporting, or otherwise avoiding the hazards the others successfully navigated, Peach wasn't quite certain. When she tried to think too hard on it, the details seemed to slip out of her grasp like they were made of quicksilver; and she'd come to the reluctant conclusion that for now it was best to just press forward. As long as she continued to meet her friends and fellow would-be-heroes on the other side of the huge hawk masks, that was good enough.

The thought of the masks unfortunately brought Peach crashing back into her present with a resounding mental thud. 

_Not that I would say no to a continuing distraction from this terrible situation, if it weren't so very likely a hazard to my continuing health!_

'This situation' being, right that very moment, making leaps as far and as high as she could manage off the tops of otherwise very prickly -- and very mobile! -- Pokeys, catching as much hang time in her gliding skirts as the capricious desert winds would allow, and hoping against hope that she would not be caught.

Not by that thing -- that mask, that horribly swift, daemonically-grinning, madly flying mask -- that she'd woken up --

_So many masks in this world, how was I to know that one would turn on me?_

_I need to keep moving!_

The mask -- Phanto -- swooped in close and Peach twisted madly, catching a downdraft that drove her back to the sands below as the razor-sharp edge of the horrid enameled thing grazed so close, she left a few stray golden hairs behind as she raced across the dunes. The key she cradled in her arms felt like a dead weight.

_It was troublesome enough to have to squeeze through those ancient vases -- why, they must be relics! -- and dig and tunnel through the sand like a mole. Now this?_

_But I need this key to escape this world. There's no choice in the matter!_

_Where did the horrible thing go now?_

So distracted she was by Phanto's deadly flight, she missed an outcropping of scree amongst the sand and slid, the air knocked out of her and the precious key tumbling across the dunes to come to a halt not far from a not-so-smallish Pokey. Peach scrambled to her feet, shook out her skirts (what odds about 'royal dignity'? she was careening across a mad desert filled with cacti, monster ninjas and plague-masked birds, there was no one to care), risked a glance skyward as she darted for the key and ...

... and there was no sign of Phanto. A flicker of red and white, off towards the shimmer of the horizon, _could_ have been it, but she wasn't certain. 

_Well, I am not going to look good fortune in the eye and curse on it --_

The Pokey had ambled closer in the meantime, and picked up a Ninji companion in the process somehow. Too tall to simply loft over, the cactus needed to be dealt with in some other fashion ... which made the Ninji far more convenient than it realized. One swift hop and Peach had the struggling creature up over her head and tossed (rather expertly, she felt) cleanly at the Pokey's top segment, shearing it cleanly off. 

_Is that ... drat, no it isn't._

The Pokey was still too tall, and uncomfortably close now besides, and disturbingly growing a new face in the baked-green flesh of its now topmost segment. Peach weighed her options. She could try the jump, and pull the segment from beneath her feet, but that was risky; or she -- could use the key, currently speckled with sand and within easy reach.

One eye on the Pokey, she stooped, hefted the chunk of metal, and --

\-- and Phanto came slicing through the air towards her.

_Didn't it leave?!_

Alarmed, Peach launched the key. It ricocheted off the mask with a bell-like tone, shearing the cactus' new top segment off, and -- once again -- as the key was went sailing Phanto retreated.

Once was coincidence, but twice had promise. A plan began to formulate in Peach's mind while she leapt atop the remnants of the hapless Pokey (and its friend, no doubt come to see the goings-on), tossing segments here and there like an expert shotput thrower. It was going to be an awkward thing to attempt, but really, beggers couldn't be choosers ...

Which ultimately led Peach, ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, to careen her way across the desert sands as if pioneering a whole new form of interpretative dance with a murderous, ancient mask as her half-overeager, half-reluctant dance partner. Peach ran, leapt, coasted, drifted, tugged withered plants from the sand, tossed Ninjis, and flung that wretched chunk of metal around over and over again, while Phanto came and went like the mad ghost of the largest frisbee that ever existed. 

But somehow, _somehow_ she made it. She reached the cursed door; the key absorbed into it, dissolving away into nothingness, and as the darkness of Subcon's bizarre transit modes engulfed her Peach finally allowed herself to heave a sigh of relief.

Oh, that was _not_ fun, not fun at all. It made dodging that strange pink dragon-lizard's flaming egg fireball trick a veritable walk in the park in comparison, even.

_I'll have to warn Mario and the others. It wouldn't be fair not to._

But oh -- as she stepped into the new worldspace, still shaking sand from her skirts -- what she wouldn't give just to see the surprise on their faces the first time!


End file.
